In Depth

The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer Wednesday in a case involving environmental cleanup costs and which party would
be liable to incur those costs.

At issue in Dreaded Inc., v. St. Paul Guardian Insurance Co., et al., No. 49A02-0701-CV-78, is whether St. Paul is liable
for environmental cleanup defense costs incurred prior to receiving notice of potential liability from Dreaded about an environmental
claim.

Dreaded received a claim letter in 2000 from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management demanding the company do a
site characterization at their former truck center in Muncie. Dreaded didn't inform its insurer, St. Paul, of the claim until
March 24, 2004. St. Paul agreed to pay all defense costs from March 30, 2004, and on, but refused to pay for any defense costs
incurred prior to that date.

The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of St. Paul, finding the company not liable for the defense costs. Dreaded
appealed the ruling, claiming its delay in notifying St. Paul of its claim was not a material breach of Dreaded's comprehensive
general liability policy with St. Paul.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court ruling that Dreaded's delay in informing St. Paul of an IDEM claim was
unreasonable but reversed the summary judgment in favor of St. Paul because Dreaded had designated sufficient evidence to
raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether St. Paul had been prejudiced as a result of the delayed notice from Dreaded.

Conversations

0 Comments

Post a comment to this story

We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or
hateful.

You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.

Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in Indiana Lawyer editorial content
are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.

No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are
relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.

We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag
a post simply because you disagree with it.